AS THE promotion chase begins to heat up, Ray Mathias repeatedly states that consistency will be the key to reaching the play offs.

For the first time this season, his side recorded their third successive win with a deserved 2-1 victory at Brentford.

The confident way Rovers took the game to the West Londoners and weathered the odd spells of pressure from the home side suggests Mathias's men appear to have grasped the elusive recipe for consistency.

Griffin Park is never an easy ground to go and get a result, but Rovers are the form side in Division Two and the players appeared to relish the challenge.

This was their third impressive performance on the bounce following equally deserved wins against Blackpool and Plymouth.

Other results on Saturday also went Tranmere's way. Play-off rivals Luton and Queens Park Rangers both lost. Rovers leapfrogged over Luton and now share 54 points with Blackpool and QPR, who occupy the final play-off spot.

After Iain Hume opened the scoring on 19 minutes, Rovers never really looked like losing this match. The teenager is in a rich vein of form at the moment and his third goal in two games showed he is brimming with confidence.

Gareth Roberts played a long ball down the middle for Simon Haworth to chase. Bees' keeper Paul Smith got there first, but his clearance only fell to Hume 25 yards out.

The Canadian kept his cool to loft the ball over the stranded keeper and into the unguarded net.

Hume continued in this game where he left off againt Blackpool a week earlier. His running with the ball posed huge problems for the Brentford defence.

His link-up play with strike partner Haworth and Jason Price - in on the right in place of the suspended Ryan Taylor - was first-rate too.

Tranmere dominated possession, but needed the reflexes of keeper John Achterberg to keep it at 1-0 in the first half. The Dutchman first denied Mark McCammon from close range, then saved with his legs after Stephen Hughes had penetrated the defence.

The game appeared to have been sewn up just three minutes after the restart. Gary Jones took posession on the far side of the box after Brentford had failed to clear a corner. His pinpoint cross picked out Ian Sharps rising at the far post and the big defender nodded home.

But that goal stung the Bees into life and Sean Connelly was forced to clear off his own goal-line after Leon Constantine's header had evaded Achterberg.

The Rovers' keeper later denied the Brentford striker by rushing out to smother his shot and he twice got fingertips to long-range drives from Michael Dobson.

When Ibrahim Sonko finally breached the Tranmere rearguard deep into added time, it set up a tense final 60 seconds.

Rovers should have been well clear of their opponents by then, but had spurned a number of promising chances in the second half. Clearly they still need to learn how to kill off opponents when they are bossing a game.

Price, on his first return to his old stomping ground, ran from the right flank and released Alex Hay in space on the left edge of the box.

Unfortunately, the 21-year-old, who had an otherwise impressive game offering plenty of width down the left, produced a shot that lacked the power to trouble Smith.

Then Roberts found Haworth on the left wing. The striker cut into the penalty area and elected to shoot from a tight angle when Hume and Price were well placed.

Haworth has been lethal in front of goal of late, but he has been strangely off form in his last two outings. Just as against Blackpool, he appeared to take too long picking his spot when Hume's clever flick left him one-on-one with the keeper and another chance to kill of the game went beckoning.

Tranmere's next three matches, against high-flying Wigan, Crewe and Cardiff, present the ultimate test of their new found consistency. They will be full of confidence after leaving Brentford with all three points.